Lots of not so good wine

[Adame]

I am new to wine making and am taking on a very large project. I bought a house last spring with a 2 acre vineyard not knowing anything about growing grapes or wine making. I grew the grapes and everything went well but my wine isn't turning out that well. My first problem was the grapes where picked too early and the acid was high. I adjusted the acid lower by adding water and sugar. Now my wine has been clarifying for 4+ months and it does not taste very good. It is sour, tart, bitter would be words I would use to describe it? It is also kind of watered down? Is there any corrections I can make before bottling? It is clarifying very well and doesn't seem to have any major problems just doesn't taste good. Even after sweetening some it's doesn't taste good.

Marechal Foch grapes
Original Brix 20-22

Adjusted levels prior to primary fermentation
I used accuvin test strips, my TA 6.5-7 range
My SG - 1.105 (seams pretty high to me but that's what I was advised to do)

 

[TonyP]

Do you know what the previous wine maker did with the grapes? Did he make wine or something else? Also, what variety of grape do you have?

 

[JohnT]

Adame,

You lucky dog! I know most folks here would give their {insert name of body part here} to own such a place.

To lower acid, what you ended up doing was to dilute your must. It would have been much better to use K-bicarb to lower the acid content of your wine. By adding water, you end up also diluting the flavor of the wine. Most winemakers work to concentrate flavors and not dilute them.

The sourness you are tasing is most likely malic acid. If this is the case, one option you have is to perform malo-lactic fermentation. Provided you have not had a heavy hand with k-meta, you can just add a malo-lactic bacteria culture to you wine, and with a little luck (and if the wine is kept at about 60 degrees) this will convert your malic acid into lactic acid. This should soften it up a bit.

My advise is to get yourself a light refracometer and test samples of you grapes befor you pick them. I you have a crop of wine grapes (and not table grapes) then you a rule of thumb of picking when the grapes are between 22 to 26 brix. Of course, this varries from variatal to variatal.

 

[g8keeper]

adame, yoy mentioned adding sugar as well....was that pre- or post- fermentation...if it was post fermentation then i would not advise you to use john's suggestion of doing a malolactic fermentation as you then run the geranium smell risk....also, you mentioned that they were marchel foch grapes....i do know from experience, since the vintner prior to me n the club i used to belong to, made it several times, it does take some time for it to come around and some of thae bitterness should go away in time....now the figures you mentioned about the acid level, was that before or after adjustment?....if after, i say that is still a tad bit high for a red....john is right though, that you loss of flavor is due to dilution with water....at this point i am wondering if juicing some more grapes, heating the juice to concentrate it, then backflavoring, would at least bring back some of the flavor...

 

[mjrisenhoover]

I'm not smart enough to help you but it sounds like an awesome variety, here is a little info on your grape:

Marechal Foch

 

[Polarhug]

Can I come live in your vineyard and sample some? LOL

 

[Adame]

The previous owner made wine with the grapes. I think he was considering starting a winery. I added the sugar before primary fermentation to bring the alcohol content up. The acid levels I have listed are after the adjustment. Just to clarify i did not ferment on the skins and seeds, it's a rose wine.I have about an acre of Marechal Foch and a acre of Lacrosse. I also have a little Catawba and Concord. The vineyard is approximately 8 - 10 years old.

 

[Polarhug]

Hmm just musing... wondering about maybe doing an f-pac or sort of dry-hop addition to boost some flavor? The MLF introduction sounds like a good bet also. How much wine did you end up with? Have you thought about any oak options? Sometimes oak will mellow my wine and round them out. How about blending with another wine to reduce the acid bite? It may just take a year or so to come around?

 

[g8keeper]

well i am no newbie, but by no means an expert when it comes to wines from fresh grapes, so i definitely invite others to chime in, but i think there may be a few routes you can take with this wine...it does sound like all is not lost...from you have stated, it sounds like the wine is still young....you could wait awhile, letting it bulk age and see it if come around at all....at the same time, i think you could either make another batch when the season comes around, perhaps concentrating the flavors on it more and then blend with the current batch...make a batch of another variety with your other available grapes when in season, and blend, as the foch also makes for a nice blending variety...being a rose, not fermented on the skins, the acid level might be ok now then, but may perhaps because of this, be a little weak in the tannin department...have you oaked this wine at all?... if not, doing so make help bring about a bit more complexity to the wine...you make even consider sweetening it a bit to offset the acid, if it seems a bit tart for your tastes....but whatever course of action you choose, i would still give it some more bulk aging time to see what develops....once again, do not take what i say as "gospel", just some suggestions, and once again, i would to hear what others have to say as well...

 

[grapeman]

There is nothing wrong with the starting range you came up with. The acid is very workable for that grape variety. The dilution can be a problem, but doing an MLF and some oaking or tannin addition will help a lot. Something else that may be a problem is powdery mildew. If you did nopt spray and had grayish clusters covered with a dust like look, it had PM. That can cause bitterness to the wine in all but minute amounts. If you had an acre of 8-10 year old vines, you should have gotten close to 1000 gallons of wine (assuming just one acre of the Foch grapes). Unless it is terrible, either oak it and mlf, then let it age 6-10 months (Foch can come around slowly) It might be OK then, but you can begin with a nice crop of good clean Foch grapes this year, ask advice on fermenting it before you do, and then you can blend some of the new with the older non-descript wine from this past year.

 

[JohnT]

The real shame is that the grapes were underripe. I still think that you should try to bring balance to the wine by softening it up through MLF. It is the TYPE of acid in your wine that is the real culprit. By converting the acid to a softer varietal, i feel you can do the most good. The wine will still not be perfect, and the "greenness" of the grapes will always be reflected in the wine's flavor, but I think that it will be much improved.

As G8 has said, the big question is what is the level of SO2 and did you add any sorbate prior to backsweetening? The answer to these two questions will determine if MLF is even advised or possible.

How much wine are we talking about here? two acres can yeild an astounding amount of wine! If that is the case, then I strongly advise you to perform corrections (whatever they may be) to a small sample before you treat you wine "en masse".

 

[Adame]

I added one campten tablet per gallon prior to primary, then one tablet twice more after racking per 6 gallon Carboy. No sorbate, I sweetened small amounts just for sampling.

 

[Adame]

Also I do not think there were any issues with mildew. They looked really good actually.

 

[DoctorCAD]

I know Wikipedia is not really a real source of good info, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marechal_Foch states that these will make a tart wine, so you must have been doing something right.

Keep at it.

 

[grapeman]

Adame how many gallons of the wine did you make? How many pounds of grapes was in it? and how many vines grew that? Just trying to zero in on things here to get to the root of the problem- if there is a real problem here. Like DoctorCAD said, Marechal Foch does make a tart wine- and I find a lot of times gets almost a medicinal quality known as the Foch Funkiness.I generally prefer the Foch relative- Leon Millot because it makes a nicer wine IMHO.

 

[Adame]

I made aprox. 150 gal. 75 gal. of rose and 75 gallons red. The red seems to taste better at this point for whatever reason. I put oak cubes in the red and initially thought I over oaked it and ruined it. It tasted like a piece of fire wood. It's mellowed out quite a bit over the last month though.

Just FYI the red tasted better before the oak cubes.

I gave\sold away most of my lacrosse. Some to wine makers the rest to the birds and bees!

 

[rob]

Adame,

The La Crosse I got from you has turned out really well, if you pm me I might be able to help you out? Have you spoke with Brad Ross about any of this, I have tasted his Foch and thought it was pretty good. Hang in there buddy!

 

[rob]

Adame,

Did you try and do a C/S on this wine?